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Innovation | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers are balancing AI innovation and accountability

As the media’s use of artificial intelligence grows, so do questions from audiences and advertisers about how they’re using it. While media companies experiment and find ways to integrate AI tools into their businesses, there’s also a need for increased transparency and disclosure around their use of AI.

Here are several ways media companies are leveraging AI in their operations and practical tips for enhancing transparency and fostering open communication with audiences.

How media companies are implementing AI

If AI could be summed up in one word in the past year, it would be experimentation. Many media companies have begun to add AI tools to their workflows to accomplish tasks such as brainstorming headlines, transcribing interviews, summarizing research or analyzing data. These use-cases help media companies improve workflows and increase efficiency.

Jennifer Bertetto, president and CEO of Trib Total Media and 535media, said her company employs AI-driven solutions to streamline reporting processes and surface content for its audience.

“AI is instrumental in personalizing content recommendations, refining advertising strategies and driving overall business efficiency,” Bertetto said. “By harnessing AI’s capabilities, we are committed to delivering superior content, fostering deeper audience engagement and ensuring sustainable growth.”

Best practices for disclosing AI use

A recent survey by Trusting News and Online News Association (ONA) revealed that nearly 94% of news consumers want newsrooms to disclose how they use AI. And more than half seek to understand what tools were implemented and how they were used during the reporting process.

To help media companies determine how to communicate this to their audiences, Poynter developed a guide to creating an AI ethics policy, which includes recommendations such as forming an AI committee and including representatives from all departments to weigh in on issues and set policies.

Aaron Kotarek, who was recently senior vice president of audience and operations for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser/Oahu Publications, Inc., and is now general manager and chief operating officer at The Spokesman-Review, led the Star-Advertiser’s AI task force. “We took great pride at OPI as it pertained to accuracy and credibility. We did not want to risk our reputation in the communities we serve by executing something rash,” Kotarek said.

Poynter also recommends dividing AI decision-making into three categories — audience-facing, business uses and back-end reporting. They also suggest that media organizations develop standards around each of these areas.

Industry resources for media companies

In addition to Poynter’s starter kit for newsrooms, there are additional resources media companies can turn to for guidance.

Trusting News, an organization to help journalists earn audience trust, created an AI Trust Kit for newsrooms to help media companies establish internal guidelines and public-facing policies for governing AI practices. The kit also offers tips on what to disclose including why journalists use AI, how they use it and how human oversight has been integrated into the editorial process.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created an AI Risk Management Framework to improve the trustworthiness of AI. The U.S. Department of Commerce developed this document to help companies think about, communicate, measure and monitor AI’s potential risks and positive impacts.

The Alliance for Audited Media is also working with publisher clients to help them navigate AI concerns and understand and implement industry best practices, drawing on experience certifying media companies in privacy and data protection programs and journalism ethics.

As AI continues to shape the media landscape, its responsible implementation and transparent disclosure is key to maintaining audience trust. By embracing best practices and leveraging industry resources, media companies can continue to innovate while upholding their commitment to quality and accountability.

Featured Post | Innovation

How Insider uses Twitter Q&As to increase transparency and trust

In an era where journalism faces a crisis of trust among audiences, Insider has taken to Twitter. 

Since 2021, Insider has done over a dozen live Twitter conversations called #TheInsideStory with its staff – from its Singapore bureau chief, to travel and entertainment editors, to reporters covering finance and health. The goal of the series is to help its audience connect with the newsroom and better understand why its staff are passionate about the beats they cover, says Alexandra Cancino, Insider’s Marketing Communications Manager. 

In June 2022, Insider did a proprietary study with its readers called Minding the Generation Gap: Media Usage & Trust Across Generations, to better understand how different generation demographics consume and trust media. They found that 94% of Insider readers feel that trustworthiness of a source is important, which reinforced the idea behind The Inside Story according to Cancino. 

The series kicked off in September 2021 with a live Q&A with Conz Preti, Insider’s parenting + health editor. The goal of the series is to give the audience a behind-the-scenes look at how Insider’s journalism is done. It also gives Insider’s journalists and editors a chance to talk about work, their networks, and their interests. 

With six more scheduled through to the end of the year, the series outlines how reporters and editors work. They showcase the breadth and depth of reportage and help grow journalists’ profiles. 

“We’re able to use these Q&As as a way to give readers a ‘behind-the-scenes’ peek at who our reporters and editors are, as well as how they perform their craft, including how they source, vet, and share information,” Cancino says. “We want them to feel what feels like a personal relationship with Insider and get to know the correspondents and editors better and why they do what they do.”

Insider view

In one Q&A, Insider spoke with media correspondent Reed Alexander, who was a finance reporter at the time of his Twitter conversation. As a finance reporter, Alexander wrote about the global economy, Wall Street, banks, and markets. The Inside Story gave Alexander the opportunity to get his work in front of a potentially broader audience. It also allowed him to share a side of him that his colleagues didn’t often get to see. 

“I had the opportunity to share with our Insider community some of what makes me passionate about business reporting, as well as to share insights into my other undertakings, like teaching a journalism class to undergrads at the University of Miami,” he said. It also “allowed me to share a side of my life that my work community doesn’t often get to see — for instance, pointing out some of my mentors in the newsroom, and explaining how I transitioned from the entertainment industry to a life in journalism.”

Earlier in October, Insider also did a Twitter Q&A with Health Correspondent Hilary Brueck focusing on what was happening in the public health sphere. As a health correspondent, Brueck writes about all facets of public health, including debunking health misinformation and reporting on health-related news. 

“The Q&A was a nice opportunity to highlight some of my recent work and share how I approach stories on my beat,” she said. The best part of the Q&A, according to Brueck, “was probably the unexpected opportunity it gave me to connect and reconnect with colleagues and sources who I’ve worked with through the years.”

Evaluating engagement

The live Twitter Q&As have had a knock-on effect in terms of engagement following the events. 

Cancino said the Q&As generated thousands of impressions on Twitter and a strong engagement rate — more than 100x Twitter’s benchmark. (According to Statista, the overall Twitter engagement rate is .04%.)

“Our reporters do a great job engaging with and tagging people, groups, and organizations they work with, and those accounts often engage back via retweets and replies,” Cancino said. 

“I definitely saw an uptick in likes and retweets on my tweets generally,” Alexander says. “It’s always difficult to isolate or pinpoint one reason for anything as a driver of a broader phenomenon, but certainly I would say it was a benefit for engagement.” 

Takeaways

With public trust of national news organizations in decline and widening partisan divides, news organizations are wise to embrace strategies to combat it and regain trust. Contemporary research suggests that transparency is a strategy to improve the public trust and brand perceptions, which in turn presents a way to restore and strengthen trust in journalism. 

Perhaps the industry should do showing, not just telling. Insider has found that its Inside Story Twitter Q&As offer just such an opportunity.

“As journalists we should be coming out behind the veil and making ourselves available. We are asking sources … to avail themselves and be open with us. I do think there is an expectation or a best practice of doing that reflexively for our audience and giving them a sense of who we are,” Alexander says. 

Being accessible and visible to the audiences and communities that journalists engage with will make them better practitioners of journalism, Alexander says. “I think it’s a great thing for other journalists to be doing… We want people to come to us for various reasons, to engage with us, to read our content, to share information. You know, how do people know where to find you if you are not really available to them and readily accessible?”

Featured Post | Perspectives | Policy

Seeing through Facebook’s transparency report

“Transparency is an important part of everything we do at Facebook.” Well, at least that’s according the first line of the company’s just-released Widely Viewed Content Report. The report is intended to provide insight into what content flowed across Facebook in the second quarter of 2021. In particular, it examines what content was viewed most in consumers’ News Feeds.

Facebook claims that most of the content on its platform comes from its users’ friends and family. The report states that news (or content that appears to be news) only represents a small fraction of what users see and share. It appears the company wants us to believe its platform is filled with family pictures and GIFs of kittens. Move along, industry watchers. According to Facebook there’s nothing to see here!

Cleaning house

The New York Times uncovered that this wasn’t the company’s first such report. According to the Times, Facebook prepared a Widely Viewed Content Report for Q1 but not release it. Apparently, the picture it painted wasn’t pretty.

According to the Times, “the most-viewed link was a news article with a headline suggesting that the coronavirus vaccine was at fault for the death of a Florida doctor.” Although the article came from a major publisher, it was the headline – and the way it was shared in a particular context by anti-vaxxers – that put it on top. Meanwhile, the 19th most popular page during Q1 was from the Epoch Times, an outlet widely known for pushing conspiracy theories.

Weird. These aren’t exactly posts about grandma’s mouth-watering apple pie or dare devil kittens hanging from ledges.

Remember, Facebook only reluctantly published the Q2 report after it spent a year discrediting external research from its own CrowdTangle data, which measures engagement (liking and sharing). When Facebook dismissed these reports, academics and researchers responded by pointing out that they were simply using the data Facebook had, itself, put out into the market. Meanwhile, CrowdTangle’s personnel were dispersed to other parts of Facebook, and the tools were pared back by Facebook, in what looked like an effort to regain control of the data and narrative.

It kind of feels like Facebook is hustling us in a giant game of Three-card Monte.

Revisionist history on repeat

Maybe there are those still inclined to give the company the benefit of the doubt. As Facebook spokesman Andy Stone soft-played their actions when he tweeted “we might have been guilty of cleaning up our house a bit before inviting company.” Unfortunately, the dumpsters full of incendiary trash impacted untold numbers of “guests” way before Facebook purportedly tidied things up and invited the “company” of critical analysis.

Facebook has a long track record of covering up and thwarting transparency at critical moments including the countless times where they enabled companies to collect data about consumers and then repurpose that data for number of reasons. Notably, these included selling Facebook’s data to third parties like Cambridge Analytica, which turned out to be one of the largest data breaches in history.

Deception is part of the business model

Recently, Facebook blocked researchers ability to gather information about what political ads are being shown across their services. It was especially galling that Facebook justified its decision as a protection of “user privacy.”

Given the company’s track record, it shouldn’t be surprising that Facebook once again opted to block full transparency. And yes, once again, the real reason is because it could hurt the business model. Even the FTC weighed in and warned Facebook not to use privacy “as a pretext to advance other aims.”

Truth told

For the Facebook model, it doesn’t matter whether the content is truthful. In fact, if there is a bias at all, it must be in favor of the least trustworthy, most salacious content (e.g. vaccine misinformation, Epoch Times) because that content tends to catch fire more quickly. And profits are way up. The business model is clearly working.

On top of that, at key junctures in Facebook’s history, executives have unequivocally chosen to hide the truth to maintain these profits. Vague commitments to transparency come only when they find themselves once again caught with a hand in the proverbial cookie jar. And now, even those promises to “do better” come with a giant caveat: We’ll only tell you something if it makes the company look good.

At this point, there are legitimate questions about whether Facebook is a good-faith actor that can ever play a constructive role. Facebook’s business model is at odds with transparency and their executives seem committed to running the business like a Three-card Monte hustle. With deep political divisions in our country hindering our ability to tackle a shared crisis (or even have a thoughtful discussion), we need leaders to step forward and demonstrate an unequivocal commitment to transparency and trust.

Featured Post | Perspectives | Policy

Accountability and opportunity go hand in hand

Relationships matter. As humans, we diverge from acting out of self-interest to accommodate the people with whom we have relationships. This might mean little things like saying “thank you” or holding the door open for the person behind you. It could be bigger things like buying a birthday gift for a friend or helping a neighbor in need.

People make sacrifices every day for those they care about. And, in any kind of relationship, there is some level of accountability. If I am jerk to a grocery store clerk, the five minutes during checkout could be really awkward or that person might decide to double-charge me for an item. Being rude to my server is not likely to speed up my dinner order. If I’m inconsiderate of my wife, I will probably be miserable until I make amends. These sorts of simple relationship dynamics play out hundreds of times every day.

The relationship business

Commercial relationships have similar dynamics. From my perch at DCN, I see premium publishers working hard every day to earn the trust and loyalty of consumers. News organizations employ journalists, who investigate and check facts, and editors, who vet content and ensure rigorous standards are followed. If they mislead, they can be held accountable by under libel laws. If they fail to engage and inform, they lose traffic and advertisers or subscribers.

Movie companies hire directors and actors to create humor, drama, or horror to entertain consumers. If they don’t do so, their movies fail to draw at the box office, they command lower fees for other distribution channels. They lose money.

Whether it’s weather, health, sports, or financial information, publishers in every vertical and across every medium work hard to create quality, compelling consumer experiences. In all of these cases, the publisher’s brand is closely tied to the content because the publisher is trying to build a relationship. And, as with any successful relationship, trust and accountability are key to developing a deeper commercial relationship with people as well.

Responsibility issues

Some of the currently pressing public policy issues have arisen in areas where there is little accountability to consumers. One big example is Section 230. It was enacted into law in 1996, as part of the Communications Decency Act, when the burgeoning tech industry was a darling of all politicians. Things have changed dramatically since those halcyon days with multiple members on both sides of the aisle introducing legislation to overhaul or eliminate Section 230.

Ironically, Section 230 was intended to empower platform companies to take responsibility. Instead, this liability shield tends to be used mostly by companies who can’t or won’t take full responsibility for their services. Tech companies tend to use Section 230 to avoid taking action. Backpage was one of the highest profile examples. However, Facebook regularly invokes the legal protections to avoid responsibility for the toxic content flowing across its services.

It’s not a coincidence that news organizations are far less reliant on Section 230 than platforms, because they stand behind their content. Content is their calling card and if customers reject it, that relationship is over.

Accountability issues

Consumer privacy is a hot topic these days because there are big tech companies building profiles about consumers behind the scenes with little transparency or accountability. From hyper-targeted advertising to potential discriminatory offerings, consumers are increasingly aware that they are being manipulated and their data is being used for myriad unexpected purposes.

Consumers have generally felt fine about their data being used within the context of a relationship with a company – e.g. ensuring the site or app loads properly on their device, remembering log-in information, or recommending new content. However, when data is used outside of that relationship, consumers react negatively. Hence, the blowback for Facebook around Cambridge Analytica. These public policy spats underscore a key difference between companies that have direct relationships with consumers versus those that are intermediaries. Direct relationships create accountability.

Building business with relationships

Accountability is an inherent part of direct relationships. That said, solid relationships provide opportunity as well.

The most visible sign of the power of direct consumer relationship is the growth of subscriptions. The New York Times and Netflix are notable success stories. However, hundreds of other media brands are finding loyal audiences that are more than willing to pay for premium content.

In addition, publishers with trusted brands are well-positioned to thrive in a world where privacy laws and tech controls increasingly restrict web-wide data surveillance. Whether it’s GDPR in Europe, CCPA and CPRA in California, or the handful of other states that are actively considering privacy laws, policymakers are trying to give consumers greater control. They seek to prevent the kind of unexpected data harvesting that happens outside of a consumer’s relationship with a company.

At the same time, key companies are rolling out privacy-friendly features. Apple built Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) into Safari and is preparing to unveil App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Both are designed to crack down on companies following consumers everywhere they go online. However, they do allow for tracking within a consumer’s direct relationship with a company.

Google announced that Chrome would follow the lead of every other major browser in blocking third-party cookies. To be clear, there are a lot of suspicions about whether Google might try to give itself preferential treatment here. But, at its core, it looks like a positive move toward consumer privacy.

Real relationships

Companies with direct, trusted relationships have an opportunity. This window of opportunity, especially for news providers, could not come at a more important time for publishers — and for our society. The news industry has taken a beating in the last decade or so as intermediaries aggregated publishers’ content and retargeted audiences. Big tech platforms incentivized scale over trust. On top of that, there has been a raging debate about the impact of platform-driven disinformation and algorithmic bias on our democracy.

Well-paid lobbyists for some big tech companies are actively working to deflect accountability. However, publishers are embracing the direct, trusted relationships (and the ensuing accountability) they enjoy with consumers. News organizations continue to produce and stand behind quality journalism – researched, fact-checked and vetted. Local news publishers are leaning into what has always made them unique – critical context and deep understanding – to serve their communities.

Strong relationships are built on open, honest, accountability. They are built on trust. For quality media brands, this is nothing but good news. 

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Protecting ad revenue and prioritizing transparency in mobile

Mobile internet usage continues to climb and 90% of mobile internet usage is spent in apps. This trend is only accelerating due to the global pandemic, which forced consumers to stay home and find new sources of entertainment. In parallel, ad spending continues to grow in the mobile environment, reaching $240 billion last year. 

Given the current state of play, mobile publishers continue to require innovative tools and technologies that enable them to connect their audiences with marketer demand. But this isn’t without its challenges, especially given new restrictions handed down by device manufacturers, like Apple.

Privacy enforcement

At their 2020 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled a new framework dedicated to enhancing consumer privacy—the AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework. ATT will apply to iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14. It represents a fundamental shift in how app publishers engage with consumers. 

When Apple requires implementation of ATT, expected in early spring of 2021, app publishers will need to request permission to use app-collected data for tracking and accessing device identifiers. This includes Apple’s mobile ID, the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). Publishers can only ask for permission once. It is persistent thereafter, until the app is uninstalled or the user changes their permissions

Put simply: Advertisers will no longer be able to target users by default, unless users explicitly opt-in.

What’s at risk

Once complete, this profound  shift will have far-reaching implications. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of users are expected to opt in to share their IDFA. Without users opting in, the majority will suddenly become unrecognizable. Mobile publishers will be left with a proverbial—and unappealing—black box. 

This will affect targeting, suppression, and measurement. Advertiser interest in in-app advertising will likely wane, and with it, the resources mobile publishers require to reinvest in building new products and acquiring new users. These changes may result in fewer free mobile apps, which could dampen the consumer experience and reduce industry competition. 

Although ATT is designed with consumer privacy in mind, we need to focus on more than privacy. We must do more to evangelize transparency. Transparency allows the industry as a whole to preserve the consumer experience and consumer privacy in a way that limiting access to free apps does not.

Mobile monetization must-haves

How do we do this? Here are three strategies that will equip the mobile publishers to monetize by delivering transparency: 

User Authentication

Users will provide login information (i.e., authentications) and share ATT consent in order to gain a closer relationship with the content they love. We need to champion authentications as a mechanism for transparency. An added benefit is that authentications are people-based and not device based. Therefore, they drive higher revenue. 

Additionally, new authentication strategies allow mobile app developers to reach the right end user and increase ATT consent rates. By authenticating themselves, individuals gain access to valuable content, brands are able to deliver better experiences, and publishers can develop closer, trusted relationships with consumers while protecting ad revenue.

Frictionless Demand

Understanding user session times, engagement and in-app purchases at the person level helps publishers hold on to as many unique audiences as possible. This allows them to activate against accurate data to achieve more ad revenue and efficiency. Publishers need frictionless demand pipes in order to seamlessly work with a partner that has strong demand-side connections.

Privacy and Security

Upholding consumer privacy, control and choice is imperative. Mobile publishers must find a way to improve the customer experience while maintaining compliance adhering to global regulations and app store requirements. This is the only way to continue to deliver key workflows necessary for business growth.  

The time is now

The impact of ATT and other near-term privacy shifts is nothing short of seismic for the mobile app industry. The stakes are high. App publishers may lose their ability to monetize valuable ad inventory. However, they may also lose also direct relationships with consumers who value the fun, exciting experiences they provide—especially during the ongoing pandemic. 

These three strategies are imperative to act on now. They are the foundation upon which app makers can start to build direct connections to audiences seeking trust and transparency in a time when few authentically provide it. 

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post | Perspectives

Transparency and trust in the media business

Like most Americans, I have been closely watching and reading coverage of the worldwide protests over racial injustice. And I am reminded that, during this time of unrest and dialogue, trusted news organizations and journalists are more important than ever.

Why? Because trusted news organizations give people credible reports of the protests and counter-protests; a framing of the national conversation through fair and accurate reporting and informed editorials; and a platform where elected officials are held accountable for their actions – or inaction. Imagine the state of our country if we only found our news on Facebook where everyone’s crazy uncle shares a conspiracy theory article link from Russia Today or outright falsehoods and where the fact-checking is mostly performative and the leadership can’t be held accountable.

Inside out

That said, even trusted news organizations are confronting their own issues right now. The New York Times published an editorial that fell short of the standards we have come to expect – and without following their own editorial protocols. Their actions, and reactions, triggered an important discussion about the role of news organizations in airing opposing points of view.

Unfortunately, this speaks to a bigger problem. Across the spectrum of media outlets, less than 40% of people say they trust news most of the time. The top concerns for news consumers are around accuracy and bias. And, unfortunately, the difference between news and opinion is not always clear to many Americans. Historically, editorials were created as a way for newspapers to provide opposing points of view while maintaining objective news operations. Certainly, transparency will help. Because the better that audiences understand the processes by which news is produced, the more confidence they are likely to have in it.

And perhaps this particular situation with Cotton’s editorial signals a shift in what younger generations will come to expect from news organizations when it comes to the presentation of opposing opinions. Just because it’s always been this way doesn’t mean it always will be this way. We need to recognize that the consumption of news and opinion is different. Audience expectations have evolved. And we need to evolve accordingly.

Accurate reflections

Another critical issue for news consumers, however, is one of seeing themselves accurately reflected in news coverage and in newsrooms. Historically, newsrooms have not appropriately   incorporated minorities in the ranks of journalists and executives. This lack of different voices and perspectives has led to blind spots in coverage and, wholesale ignoring of issues important to these communities.

We’ve seen a slew of stories emerge around longstanding issues in media organizations in the wake of Black Lives Matter. Editors and executives have left (or been removed from) their positions and many organizations have pledged to do better. And this is a good thing, because the stakes are high.

Work to do

Some organizations are making a concerted effort to remedy these shortcomings. The aforementioned New York Times, for instance, publishes an annual Diversity and Inclusion Report, where they share “data on the composition of our staff, and provide updates on the steps we’re taking to continue to build on our progress.” The goal is to be fully transparent around the current state of their diversity staffing as well as the efforts they are making to improve. However, there is some debate about whether these kinds of efforts move the needle or just underscore the problem.

But at least we’re talking about the problem. For example, there was a great deal of public debate around the merits of The New York Times’ choice to publish an editorial by Senator Tom Cotton. And the Times’ own justification and internal review were widely shared.

From my perspective, transparency is paramount. Without transparency, we won’t ever have meaningful conversations or realize change. The conversation about racial injustice is profoundly important because Black Americans need to be heard. We all need to listen. And we need fundamental and systemic change. The media plays an essential role in this important issue. So, a frank open discussion of the issues at hand – globally, nationally, locally, and in our own newsrooms – is critical now, more than ever.

Featured Post | Perspectives

Objectivity vs. transparency: Let journalists be opinionated on social

As much as newspaper proprietors might wish otherwise, journalists are indivisible from the brand from which they write. Whether they’re a lifer at a particular title or flit between a number, each is both product and ambassador for that outlet. 

But just as social media has allowed the public at large access to audiences as large as those of publishers, it’s allowed journalists to do that same. That’s caused problems. There’s a list of journalists fired for behavior unbecoming to their employer as long as your arm. And some major media brands have effectively made public dissent a firing offense for their journalists. 

Recently both Channel 4 and Sky News in the UK have taken steps to prevent their journalists from sharing opinion on anything at all – especially if it’s not their specific beat.

Blurring the line

However, two giants of the newspaper world – Will Lewis, the former boss of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, and ex-Financial Times editor Lionel Barber – have expressed a slightly different take on the issue. They, presumably having seen the horrific collapse in trust in journalism, have decided that the “blurring of fact and opinion” has contributed to the perception that newspapers are biased and therefore untrustworthy. 

Barber said: “I would make a more general point. We’ve seen this particularly at the BBC: we have to be very careful in the way journalists are using social media. They are essentially seeing [their social media pages as] their own platforms, and it’s definitely comment. Therefore this blurring that Will rightly identifies has been massively accentuated by social media.

“And it’s not good enough for journalists to say: Oh, by the way, on my Twitter handle, these views are [my own]. Because they do work for an organization.”

Trust issues

They have a point. Bias is consistently cited as a reason for lack of trust. And the Digital News Report makes it clear that a vast array of newspapers’ target audiences value objectivity. That’s especially true for publicly-funded news organizations, But even as media marketing becomes more tribal, it’s true that the public does see pH-neutral news content as something to be striven for. 

The issue is that we each have our own biases, whether we acknowledge them or not. Social media allows the public to see that journalists (being people too) do have biases and beliefs.

Warts and all

However Lewis, Barber and the rest are wrong about the solution. The answer is not telling journalists to “just stop it.” Instead, newspapers should lean harder into making their journalists the ambassadors for their brands, warts (and opinions) and all.

Firstly, despite cries of balanced reporting, it’s bleeding obvious that publications have a political bent. The polarization of the news media is readily apparent, and we do a disservice to our audiences if we say that journalists don’t have a political agenda when their parent publications do. We shouldn’t be trying to pretend we’re objective individually. Rather, we should aim for absolute transparency about why we make the decisions we do  – even around theoretically impartial sources like data.

As The Financial Times’ senior data visualization journalism John Burn-Murdoch put it: “I think any data journalist who says that data is objective, and it’s the highest form or the purest form of journalism, I think they’re pulling your leg.

“And so the way you have to do it is you just have to put all of the politics of it aside. Think: what is the fairest, or just sort of straightest way of doing this stuff? And I think the nice thing for me in this process is that because I’ve been quite open and transparent in communicating the rationale for this stuff on on Twitter, for example, or in interviews. I’ve had to hold myself to that really.”

Clear vision

Secondly, you can’t trust what you can’t see. Having journalists simply vanish from the public conversation makes them faceless. It wouldn’t deflect criticisms of bias  – we have to trust that our audiences are smart enough to know journalists are people too. But it would remove a key way to counter those accusations personally. 

Many publications are making access to their journalists a core tenet of their membership and subscription models, for exactly that reason. Publications as diverse as The Athletic and The Atlantic offer direct contact with journalists as a major selling point. And as a byproduct, trust improves because we trust the people we communicate with directly.

Thirdly, there’s the issue of newspapers needing to get their own houses in order. Many pay their columnists specifically to be opinionated. And, while most label the distinction between reportage and columnists’ articles clearly, there is no clearer indication of a newspapers’ bias one way or another than the columnists they choose to employ. 

Money matters

Beyond the potential boost to trust of having visible journalists, there’s a financial incentive for boosting their visibility on social media. For one thing, journalists are the most ardent proponents of their own work. Typically that’s been played to the hilt by papers looking to drive traffic, but there’s evidence it works for driving subscriptions too. Membership-based publications like Tortoise gave its employees a specific discount code to pass onto potential new subscribers, and have seen significant success as a result.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News is trialing a system that allows its journalists to give would-be subscribers a reporter-specific code for a month’s free access. Writing for Nieman Lab, Hanaa’ Tameez says: “The Dallas Morning News‘ latest experiment to boost digital subscriptions is something you’ve seen before. If you’ve ever been tempted to buy a lipstick off Instagram because an influencer gave you a discount code (guilty), this works in the same way.”

Influencers and Instagram

The concept of journalists as influencers is bound to raise hackles among some. Despite that, I’ve argued before that journalists have traditionally done a bad job of communicating the value of their own publications. And they could learn a lot about being ambassadors from influencers. As it looks like Instagram might become more vital for driving conversions than Twitter, that could become an even more apt comparison.

Beyond even that, allowing journalists to be more visible and outspoken on social media could help salve one of the biggest issues of the past few years. Journalism has a real problem in not accurately reflecting the public. That’s doubly true in the UK where graduates of two universities hold a disproportionately high number of senior roles in the industry, and BAME journalists are hardly represented at all. If journalism is to regain the trust of the public, better representation is paramount. 

Papering over the cracks by hiding the opinions the public knows we hold anyway is a sop to an impossible ideal. Instead of obfuscating them and squirreling them away, we should be loud, proud  – and completely transparent.

Industry-Research

How “Behind the Story” cards affect readers’ trust in the news

In an effort to provide more transparency in journalism, McClatchy, a local news publisher with a footprint in 30 markets, designed an information card to help readers better understand the reporting process. To evaluate its effectiveness three McClatchy newsrooms undertook a study to explore whether the placement of these informational cards on a news organization’s website affected readers’ recall of the card and trust in news.

The information cards, called Behind the Story (BtS), highlight why a topic is important to write about, how the story is written, and who the journalist interviewed. The Center for Media Engagement, in partnership with three McClatchy newsrooms: The Wichita Eagle, El Nuevo Herald and The Sacramento Bee, conducted research with over 300 participants to assess recall and efficacy of the BtS cards.

Overall, the findings show that, while the BtS card appealed to most readers, a majority of readers did not notice the presence of the card when placed within the context of an article. Importantly, however, when shown outside the context of an article, a majority of readers said the card would improve their trust in a news organization.

Recall

In all, 34% of respondents said they remembered seeing a section titled “Behind our Reporting” when the card was placed within the context of the article compared to 21% who recalled seeing the BtS card when placed at the bottom of the article. Although a higher percentage of people noticed the BtS card when it was placed in-line, the difference in overall recall is not statistically significant compared to the card appearing at the bottom of the article.

Interestingly, non-subscribers were significantly more likely to recall the card when it appeared in-line (40%) than subscribers (30%).

Trust

Placement of the BtS card, in-line or at the bottom of the article, did not impact participants ratings to the trustworthiness of the article, the news organization or the reporter in a significant matter. Overall, the study suggests that using a card designed to improve transparency may positively affect trust. However, newsrooms need to ensure that it’s noticeable.

Previous research from the Center for Media Engagement found that less than 10% of readers in three communities thought that their local newsrooms adequately explained how and why they decide what stories to cover.

With efforts like these, McClatchy is taking important and positive steps to help strengthen readers’ trust and negate concerns with misinformation and fake news. Fine tuning the placement of the BtS card and its messaging are encouraged. Future research should assess additional BtS designs, verbiage and continue to test best placement and overall impact on recall and trust metrics.

Advertising | Featured Post | Innovation

How USA Today balanced advertiser and consumer expectations in its latest redesign

One of the biggest challenges facing any digital publisher is how to balance the often-competing needs of readers and advertisers. Brands may want visibility, but how do you ensure their presence doesn’t negatively impact the site’s look and feel? And how do you deliver the best possible user experience in a way that continues to deliver results to advertisers?

The product team at USAToday kept these challenges top of mind while working on its slick site overhaul unveiled late last year– its first major redesign since 2012. Among the most noticeable changes are faster speeds, different colored sections, clearer content labeling, more intuitive navigation and a more integrated presentation of sponsored content.

Doing the research

“Over the years we’ve collected a lot of information from both advertisers and users on what they want from us,” says Nicole Dingess, Senior Director of Product Design and User Experience Team at Gannett, USA Today’s parent company. “Our advertising clients had been saying they wanted something that felt special, and they kept using the word ‘premium’. So, we really dug into that and asked what they meant.”

After some questioning, most brands revealed they wanted to feel like a part of the content: “They don’t want a logo slapped on like an afterthought, they wanted something thoughtful that gave them presence.”

At the same time, the team also wanted to better serve their users, whether they came to them through search, social or homepage. “We describe our desktop users as our most loyal users – they’ll read three articles on average. And they’re the kind of folks that will engage with a 200-page photo gallery,” explains Dingess. “When people come from social, they want to know whether the article is what the headline said it was. We needed to meet their expectations and keep them engaged.”

Refined goals

With this in mind, the team set about work with three main goals: transparency, greater personalization for advertisers, and a more respectful user experience featuring faster speeds.

To improve the user experience, the team created new section colors to make it more obvious whether someone is reading a news story, opinion piece, or lifestyle content such as Travel. One of the most noticeable features is that op-eds now feature a ‘virtual highlighter’, clearly differentiating them from news pieces.  “We need to help consumers understand what it is they’re taking in,” says Dingess.

On the homepage the team created “section bundles” to help readers locate the latest content and ensure they’re up to date with the day’s latest news. “We’re doing organization for them. It’s quickly scannable, and then they can go deep into articles if they want,” says Dingess. They also came up with new ways to offer special content to users, such as investigative pieces or a podcast series, by adding pathways in the masthead. “We can catch your eye and reveal USA Today content that you might not otherwise know about.”

A premium experience

In order to satisfy advertisers’ needs, the team developed a page template to present sponsored content in a more natural-feeling way. “If someone sponsors a section, they get the background color as their brand color, so it feels very immersive,” she says. “Their logo is on the masthead, making it feel integrated rather than ‘stuck on’.”

Of course, user and advertiser needs can sometimes clash. Therefore, balancing these two goals at all times was the team’s biggest challenge. “We looked at every decision through those different lenses,” she says. “We needed to make sure we were not over-investing in one at the cost of another.”

A rigorous testing method was applied to ensure that all goals were being hit. “The team often had their own thoughts about what might be tripping people up or what could change, but we wanted to get a sense of how users were interacting,” she says. They used a card sorting exercise to test out the navigation, and each article layout was also put through user testing.

The big reveal

The final redesign was released to 2% of the website’s users. Then, after about a month of refinement, the site was rolled out to everyone.

Thus far, Dingess says the team has gotten “fantastic feedback” on the user experience, the site speed and the new premium look and feel. Advertisers and users alike are also fans of the clearer labeling of content. Overall, she says, “we’re hearing that the site’s much easier to use.”

One of the most discussed aspects of the redesign is the fact that comments on articles have been removed – a move in line with many other publishers, such as Vice and The Guardian. “We’d received feedback over time that people disliked the comments,” says Dingess. “Internally, we need to have an ongoing conversation about the role of commenting and what alternatives we might put out there, or how we might improve the experience.”

Overall, Dingess is confident the team has created an excellent base that will allow for tweaks and improvements as and when necessary. “We’ve built a solid foundation that we can refine over time, and we intend to do that,” she concludes.

Advertising | Perspectives

Can data transparency labels help restore the health of digital advertising?

Not too long ago — about 10 years — a CMO client of mine explained with surprising candor how his job was evolving. “Up until a couple of years ago, I set my marketing strategy in October, got it approved in December, and then executed on it over the course of the following year — without much fanfare or oversight from anyone else in the company. Now I’ve got everyone from the CEO and CFO to business until GMs stopping by every week asking about new tactics I should employ.” I sometimes think about that comment. I wonder if it portended things to come for the industry or if that was a relatively calm environment, compared to today’s landscape. 

While we’re all acutely aware of how much the marketing ecosystem has changed in recent years, it’s jarring to stop and think about how much it’s really changed. Brands spend more ad dollars on a channel that effectively did not exist in a meaningful way until the mid-2000s. They have increased online ad spending by 5x since 2010. And these same brands will spend more than $125 billion on digital this year, a channel that is widely understood to be fraught with fraudulent activity, spotty data, and gaping transparency issues. 

The FBI has investigated the sector. Respected industry outlets report that “digital ad fraud is worse than ever, a daily, hourly fight.” The online advertising supply chain is a swampy morass that includes everything we’ve come to expect from swampy morasses: bad international actors, sketchy data, grossly exaggerated or just downright false claims, opaque fee requirements, and even the peripheral involvement of Cyprus. 

But so it goes. The digital channel is more cost effective than offline options. It is wildly popular and still growing. Warts and all, it works on multiple levels, and continues to gain in influence and stature. Perhaps the digital advertising community has either been disinterested in intervening meaningfully to improve conditions or stymied by immovable roadblocks (see: duopoly). However, the industry does seem toy insert a concept like Data Nutrition Labels into the ecosystem on a semi-regular basis. Here’s what advertising and media executives need to know about the industry’s latest attempt to improve market efficiencies, reduce waste, and regain a bit of self-governance. 

Data transparency labels make sense and could bring clarity to a murky marketplace

Obviously borrowing the FDA’s approach to food nutrition labeling, DTLs provide basic, valuable information about, well, data. This includes answering who / what / how / where / questions. As in: 

  • Who provided the data?
  • What does the describe (what audience segment)?
  • How was the data collected and constructed? 
  • Where were its components sourced? 

Implications for advertisers & publishers

If widely adopted, advertisers will benefit by being able to comparison shop more easily and be afforded some peace of mind when they do shop. Large operations are already doing this kind of diligence during the buying process.

However, smaller and less experienced advertisers don’t have the resources or know-how and are at a big disadvantage as a result. On the publishing side of the house, meaningful adoption of the DTLs will should benefit entrenched competitor. This is because they have a much better understanding of their inventory than many of the platforms or ad tech companies, which are either too big to precisely understand what’s going on or are currently under too much marketplace pressure and running too lean to be able to invest the resources necessary to acquire the understanding. 

While obviously logical, these kinds of initiatives don’t typically endure

At the end of the day, however, markets resist being controlled. In categories like healthcare and transportation, where lives are at stake, it goes without saying that regulation on top of strict self-governance (if only for risk management reasons) is required and mostly welcomed by consumers. However, it is the rare situation in which advertising involves persistent life-and-death implications so motivation may be lacking.

As a result, if only because most initiatives like this fail or wither without explicit government backing, it’s best to approach DTL with a dose of caution. Most large, deep-pocketed advertisers either have their digital advertising operations under control or are trending in that direction, so their support of DTL may manifest in spirit only, which could be problematic for the effort over the long term. 

Implications for advertisers & publishers

Expect advertisers to support DTLs in principle, if not via financial support (at least not out of the gate). However, if the project’s key sponsors — the Association of National Advertisers, Interactive Advertising Bureau, Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, and Advertising Research Foundation — can generate and sustain some momentum, things could change.

But remember this only launched in October of last year. It’s too early for publishers to build a business case around supporting DTL adoption. That said, it certainly can’t hurt the cause, and many of the building blocks for incorporation are already in place by way of marketing and sales collateral that espouses data integrity and value. There’s little downside for publishers to embrace the initiative, and do what they can to help make it successful. The current working group is not unimpressive and seems open to accepting new members. 

While unique in its form, the launch of the Data Transparency Label initiative is another well-intentioned effort by the industry to improve the marketplace via a combination of buyer education, supplier accountability, and standardization. Over the years, we’ve seen industry groups such as ANA, DCN, IAB, and others insert themselves into the online advertising ecosystem to drive change in a volatile and often uniquely inefficient marketplace. 

With its straightforward packaging and potential to address an obvious market need, the DTL initiative has the potential to eventually be a game-changer. Having multiple industry groups and a laundry list of recognizable companies involved at the outset is notable and encouraging. Advertisers and publishers alike will be well-served by keeping a close watch on the development of this project. There’s no guarantee of its success and indeed past experience suggest it faces an uphill battle, but it’s an initiative that most certainly fills a market need. 

About the author

Tim Bourgeois is a digital marketing analytics and SEM consultant that helps brands optimize ROI on advertising, technology and agency investments. 

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Spring is in the air for advertisers and premium publishers. But we need to cultivate the opportunity for revenue growth.

Maybe this is true everywhere. But in the northeast, we’ve reached the time of the year when nearly everyone has had just about enough of winter and is eager for warmer days. And, with OTT buds starting to bloom and brand safety and other concerns driving brands to invest with trusted partners, premium digital publishers may also be wondering if their long cold winter of online advertising could see signs of warming.

A recent report from MediaRadar, indicated that programmatic ad spend from a number of advertisers shrunk year-over-year from 2017 to 2018. While some brands may have become more reluctant to spend money in programmatic, directing funds out of the programmatic ecosystem is typically a temporary measure. Advertisers are building their internal expertise and seeking ways to get the benefits of programmatic (such as automation and the ability to leverage their increasing store of customer data) without the downside of low or unknown media quality. Emarketer has predicted increasing momentum towards private marketplace or programmatic direct deals through 2020. This reflects advertiser expectations that trusted publisher partnerships will best meet the demand for quality inventory.

Market Pressure

In addition to the growing sophistication of buyers, other trends in the marketplace are also conspiring to shift advertiser spend to premium publishers. Increasing consumer interest in privacy and data governance, kicked off by initiatives like GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, will make it harder for lesser-known inventory providers to use targeting and consumer data to win brand dollars.

The rise of OTT gives premium publishers a unique carrot for digital ad buyers. This makes it difficult for lesser-known publishers to access inventory at scale across this new channel, unless there are significant changes to the ecosystem that empower smaller players. Given that publishers see the nascent OTT market as the first major bulkhead in winning the dollars currently devoted to linear TV, it’s unlikely that we’ll see the market open up to anywhere near the degree we have seen with mobile or desktop advertising. The winning platforms – companies like Apple, Amazon, and Roku – and the winning publishers – the major broadcasters and other household names for video content – are likely to keep the market under tight rein.

Value Matters & Values Matter

However, the wild card in this whole equation is the degree to which advertisers can feel confident that they are getting what they pay for. This applies not only to audience reach, but also a quality playback experience, meaning a viewable, brand-safe, and non-fraudulent impression. Without transparency on inventory quality, advertisers will continue to seesaw between investing in digital and pulling back spend to put it into other channels, as we have seen over the course of the last few years.

Transparency lays the foundation for trust between buyer and seller, and it is difficult for buyers and sellers to work together to establish this trust if they are relying on numbers from two different sources. All too often, publishers measure using one set of numbers while advertisers are using another. This inevitably results in discrepancies. It is difficult for publishers and advertisers to work together to support a transparent marketplace when they are measuring using two different methodologies. Standardizing on a single set of numbers on the buy and sell-side could also reduce the number of calls to supporting vendors’ ad code. It also makes it easier for buyers and sellers to work together to streamline the technology, reducing latency and other issues.

Standards and Issues

The good news is that the industry has never been in a better position to solve the problem of transparent cross-screen measurement. We as an industry have for the first time introduced measurement-specific ad standards. Most notably, these include the Open Measurement initiative, including the Open Measurement SDK, and Open Measurement for web. Prior measurement efforts piggybacked on technical standards like VPAID and MRAID, which were introduced to support rich media, not to provide accurate reporting on inventory quality. Having a standard designed expressly to support measurement that works across all devices is a great development.

We need to move the industry towards a single technical standard for measurement. We must get publishers and advertisers on board to utilize a common methodology to measure inventory quality. And we need to tackle measurement issues head on when they arise. This proactive approach is surely preferable to finger pointing and fighting over makegoods.

Now we are at the point where it’s either springtime or more cold lean years for publishers whose content deserves better. We can let dozens of competing proprietary approaches fragment the nascent digital TV ad industry. Or we can agree not to let that happen and work together to align the buy-side, sell-side, and the standards used for measurement. The outcome of that decision could mean the difference between five years to a fully digital ecosystem – or 15.

About the Author

Michael Tuminello is VP of Publisher Products at Integral Ad Science. He works to ensure premium publishers inventory achieves its full value potential. He plays an active role in helping to develop and improve industry standards. Michael is a two-time winner of the IAB Service Excellence award (2015 and 2019), as well as the MMA Smarties award for individual contribution to the mobile advertising industry. He was previously a Product Leader at Innovid, Sizmek, and Unicast. 

Featured Post | Perspectives

Recklessness, a reckoning, and the road forward

Two cars travel down a two lane road approaching one another from opposite directions. A solid white line sits painted in-between them as they approach each other. One car swerves, crossing the line, then cuts back. 65 MPH and climbing, and the only thing preventing the car from crossing into the other’s lane again is a theoretical barrier painted on pavement. These guiding lines are not a guarantee. They’re more of a social contract, a legal rule that we abide by because it is for the betterment of ourselves, others, and the rest of society. However, this driver chose not to follow the rule and crossed into the wrong lane. What happened? Recklessness.

The media and information industry is in an age of recklessness. Fueled by misinformation, lines are being crossed. And this reckless behavior is taking a serious toll on the trust in and value of the media.

We want to believe in societal norms that govern the free flow of trustworthy information. There are standards that should apply across platforms, publishers, and consumer domains. There is an assumed integrity that applies not only to the words we write, but the videos we produce, and how they are spread throughout the web. But this recklessness has led to a reckoning; and now we must forge a new path forward.

Post-Truth, True Story

Unfortunately, this is clearly no longer the case (‘That’s not altered. That’s sped up. They do it all the time in sports.’). There are now separate narratives, cultures, and communities built around the rhetorics of truth, information and more dangerously, misinformation. Reputation is no longer a default to “trusted” media brands at the domain level. It needs to be re-focused, re-earned, and re-defined.

The role of media institutions today is more important than ever. In the age of recklessness, we need to continue to provide our communities and readers with the knowledge they need to inform their lives, societies, and governments. And it’s the responsibility of the rest of society to process this information and re-paint those lines that define to bring awareness to what is real and what is not. Today it’s more important than ever to understand the information that is being put in front of you. And that understanding runs deeper than images and text, to the source, the context, the delivery channel, and much more.

The revolution will not be qualified; it will be quantified. The media business is positioned better than ever to expose the value of their work and drive their business forward. Putting an emphasis on trust, the value of a media brand is in its operation and its reputation.

Media business leaders need to keep their eye on the road. How can they secure and deliver information that is validated, honest and objective? And through that, expose that their organizations differentiate from other less reputable players in the space.

To emphasize this value, media must prove its worth. That seems frustrating, especially because many of these institutions have been in business for decades, even centuries. However, when you ask someone to pay for something, you must give them a reason why. In order to be successful, the media business must be subscribed to, not just supported. That means creating a product market fit that is both helpful and necessary. To do this, we must expose our practices, and how we seek provenance, validation, truth and every other value that’s standard to the media industry.

Proof of Effort

Building value means exposing the underlying components for all to see. To severely oversimplify: The greatest value of the media industry is in its effort. The practices behind media, and the process by which information is researched, created, edited, and published is what drives its purpose and differentiation from imitators.

However currently, the only way to quantify media’s value is in generalities. How many page views, referrals, visits, and shares does a piece of information garner? This is the opposite of what drives reputation and an institutions’ value, which has everything to do with the actions before a piece of information is published. Because of this, and how information is distributed (social platforms, search, applications), information has become commoditized. The value of a viral video is measured the same as an investigative expose, even though the investment in each is severely different. And gaming that system is how we continue to not just commoditize our worth, but blur the value between information and misinformation.

Media’s recklessness is fueled by misinformation. And because of this, not all media can be valued equally. But how did we get here? The value attributed to media-at-large is dictated by the returns of where it is being distributed. Facebook, Google, and other major platforms have rewarded content based on output mechanics. This has little to do with how the information is created, edited, and published prior to distribution. Because of this, everything appears to be created equal; even though the efforts behind different types of media work and the investments tied to them are all different. We need to refactor the economics of the web and better reward and expose the value in the efforts of creating the good, while in parallel demoting the bad. This starts with quantifying elements of effort as it relates to truth.

A Valuable Proposition

Quantifying the next era of media can be  associated in a few sets: attribution, provenance and the effort behind the work. What’s clear is that we know that there is value in a creator’s work. And we, as an industry,  recognize what it is but do a terrible job conveying it to our audience and consumers. Building a way to expose the efforts in media and put the value on that input instead of the output will get us there. This is the key differentiation between what can and cannot be trusted; is the way that we got to this information accurate? If so, show it.

This information exposure is the first step towards a path away from misdirection and recklessness. In today’s society, the lines in the road are meant to be abided by because there an understanding how they got there and why they exist. As long as that narrative continues, they will continue to do their job governing the way we as a society move around. The same goes for media. We must remind the world why these practices and principals exist, and how they came to be in the first place. They are the lines that govern information and most importantly, democracy. This must be exposed for the betterment of our world.

All of this adds up to a world in which quality media, information exposure, and great creative translate into good business. It’s the key component to wresting control over news from misinformers, manipulators, “clickbaiters,” and social media hubs and placing it back into the hands of media organizations that want to produce quality information about issues that really matter. We must put value on our effort to build a transparent and healthy newfound ecosystem.

Media is undervalued. It’s undervalued financially but especially undervalued in its role in maintaining a free and open society. Acknowledging and emphasizing its purpose through ubiquitous effort points solves for both. It will enable us to build new platforms, value systems and economies based on our true value and starve misinformers in its wake.

We know why the work that we do is so important. Now it’s time for us to let the world know exactly what goes into it.

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